Australian Maritime Issues 2007 - Royal Australian Navy

138 AUSTRALIAN MARITIME ISSUES 2007: SPC-A ANNUAL
surprisingly, the four work closely together on a range of regional security initiatives.
Indeed, as a senior US State Department official indicated, ‘we are working with
Singapore, Japan and Australia to broaden PSI participation in Asia’. 49
The way that this four-nation security nexus is evolving indicates some form of division
of labour. For instance, the states that are more acceptable to the region, such as Japan
and Australia, have begun to take a greater role compared to the US. Japan has begun
to provide the necessary training, funding and other capacity building assistance
– such as funding of surveillance equipment and patrol craft – to the littoral states to
improve their indigenous capability in counter-piracy and counter-terrorism. Australia’s
assistance to Indonesia in counter-terrorism has been substantial and invaluable.
Indeed, it appears that Japan and Australia have been able to gain greater acceptance
for counter-piracy and counter-terrorism roles, which would have been difficult for
the US given domestic sensitivities as a result of strong anti-US sentiments among
Muslims in the region.
Singapore has played an important role in facilitating the entry and roles of all three
extra-regional powers. It is a critical regional ally for all three in their engagement
with the region. For Singapore, this represents a striking success in foreign policy as
security, political and economic allies enhances its own ability to better manage the
new terrorist threats that have emerged since 11 September 2001.
Subsequent to the workshop, this paper was printed under the title
‘Singapore’s cooperation with the United States, Japan and Australia in the
war against global terrorism’, Defence Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, June 2007,
and is reprinted with permission (www.informaworld.com).
Notes
1
See for instance: Bruce Hoffman, ‘The new terrorism’ in Andrew Tan and Kumar Ramakrishna
(eds), The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends and Counter-Strategies, Eastern Universities Press,
Singapore, 2002.
2
The Washington Post, 2 June 2004.
3
Straits Times Interactive, 15 October 2002, .
4
‘Carnage in wake of Jakarta blast’, CBS News, 6 August 2003, ; ‘Massive blast at Jakarta Embassy’, BBC
News, 9 September 2004, ; and ‘Bali
bomb attacks claim 26 lives’, BBC News, 2 October 2005, .
5
See Rohan Gunaratna, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi: A New Generation Terrorist Leader,
Commentaries, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore, 5 July 2004.